Island House is a registered charity that has been serving the Isle of Dogs community since 1972.

They are a community resource hub, providing facilities, projects, services and activities for local people.

Founded as a community project of the United Reformed Church, they put the values of the Christian faith at the heart of everything they do. That includes serving everyone equally without discrimination, and providing for those of other faiths, or no faith at all.

They were founded in 1972 as a community project of the United Reformed Church (URC), whose Thames North Trust act as the Custodian Trustees.

St Paul's URC is based at Island House. Their original building, the Scottish Presbyterian Chapel on Westferry Road E14, is now "The St Paul's Arts Centre" (or "The SPACE"), a local performing arts centre.

In 2005, Island House became a charity in its own right, not just a church. Louise Pears was appointed as Centre Director to work alongside the URC minister to develop a new programme of community activities and services. Alongside the new activities, a major refurbishment of the premises took place to integrate the former manse into the community centre and provide a new reception area, improved meeting space and a wheelchair accessible lift to all floors.

As activities and programmes continued to develop, in 2009-11 the garden was redesigned and replacement windows were added under the Greening initiative, followed by the installation of photo-voltaic panels to generate the own electricity in 2012. They first earned Greenmark accreditation in October 2012.